Hitler Must've Had Help - A look at war through the eyes of a child

Summary

Kitso paused for a moment and then asked: “Does your bank do that, daddy?”

“Do what, honey?” he asked, clearly not seeing the link between the question and BestBank.

“Finance wars like the banks did during World War Two,” she said as she looked at him wide-eyed.

“No way, honey, not at all…” His response was a bit too loud and defensive and he knew it. And as he chewed thoughtfully on his next bite it now tasted like guilt.

Surely we don’t finance wars, do we? It’s just business.

Actually, now that his daughter had asked, it made him think. But why was he only thinking about it now, he wondered?

He knew that BestBank held a significant number of shares in the arms sector globally. They were also a principal banker for major arms companies and invested large amounts of their clients’ money into these companies. With all the wars and unrest going on globally, BestBank was quite profitable.

But does our bank actually finance –? He looked around to make sure no one heard his thoughts as the incomplete question now hung precariously above an obvious and complete answer.

His mind was miles away when the waiter asked: “Is everything still okay, sir?”

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Hitler Must've Had Help - A look at war through the eyes of a child - Joyce Tholo

Tholo

With love

To my sons Ulemo and Bayanda

Your inspiration

culminated in this book

More will follow in your name

PREFACE

It was a lovely Saturday afternoon for a relaxing walk. Kitso cycled alongside mama Winnie in the housing estate complex, a mild breeze blowing her ponytailed dreadlocks. This moment reminded mama of a time back in Angola when her little Grace used to cycle around their yard and village streets. She was ten years old when her father surprised her with a red second-hand bicycle. Benson taught Grace how to ride it; holding both the seat and one handle while pacing alongside her.

Grace would paddle unsteadily and lean against her father as he strained to keep the bicycle in balance. Benson was a loving husband and father and unlike other men in the village who relegated their wives and daughters to the fields and nearby river to fetch water, Grace was his pride and joy. Oh the times she fell and scraped her knees and palms learning to cycle, mama could no count. But Grace would not give up.

One Sunday afternoon after lunch, mama Winnie sat in the kitchen marking her students’ History papers. She heard a loud, piercing shriek that sent her stomach into a long spasm – the kind a mother feels when something terrible has happened to her child. She leaped out of her chair fearing the worst and ran to the front door facing the street.

And there she was – Grace riding her bicycle unaided. Her dear father followed closely behind, worn out by the unrelenting heat and their countless attempts. She was riding on her own now, though unsteadily, and he didn’t want to risk her falling.

And she didn’t.

Breathless, he finally stopped and pumped weary arms in the air victoriously. From a growing distance he egged his daughter on with shouts to: Paddle on. Grace cycled past mama who was now standing on the front stoep, hands clapping, arms flapping with joy as she shouted: Gracey, Gracey!

She was on that same bicycle the day she lost her limb.

***

The clouds hid the scorching Angolan sun that afternoon twenty years ago when Grace told her father she wanted to ride up the hill and practice handling it on rougher ground. She had grown more confident now and needed something more challenging to do with her bicycle. Her loving father happily accompanied her, saying he would jog behind her.

Be careful out there, Benson, mama Winnie cautioned her husband lovingly. There may still be a one or two hidden. But Grace was already off and Benson waved back at her joking that she worried too much. The scars of landmines both on the Angolan landscape and on the bodies of their victims were never too far from the minds of the villagers. In old tracksuit pants, a faded t-shirt and well-worn running shoes, Benson jogged behind his daughter and out the gate they went. The two waved and greeted neighbours sitting under trees in their yards as they headed for the hills. On and on they went.

The gap between Grace and her father must have been around eighty metres when Benson heard a sound that didn’t belong to such a beautiful day. It stopped him dead in his tracks. Through squinted eyes he looked ahead of him and saw a cloud of dust where his daughter should have been.

Flying above the dusty cloud was a lone severed limb spraying droplets of blood all around as it tumbled sadly, a girl’s takkie still on its foot. Benson leaped into a desperate sprint, howling incoherently. A man as agile as he, he should have been at his daughter’s side in a matter of seconds but after what felt like a marathon he still hadn’t reached her and he couldn’t understand why.

Exhausted, frightened and shocked beyond belief, he collapsed to his knees when his legs faltered beneath him.

Gra-a-a-ce! came a skyward wail and heart-rending prayer while she, another victim of the sleeping Angolan war now lay bleeding her young life into the thirsty soil.

In his panicked state Benson had run away from his daughter and not towards her.

CHAPTER 1

Thuli Lebone turned into Brighton Prep and College, easing her car into the Preparatory parking lot. Located on prime land in the Fourways suburb of Northern Johannesburg, the school hosted a Pre-School, Preparatory and High School.

Her meeting with her new client ended an hour earlier so she decided to drive straight to Brighton, buy her favourite mango juice from the school’s cafeteria and find a quiet spot near the vast, empty playground to think.

Think hard.

Think very hard.

About her husband, Terrence.

The one who seemed to grow younger and more handsome with each birthday, the one whose heart had completely shrunken to make place for a malignant tumor called egotism, the one who would still manage an air of absolute respectability that no priest could in the most compromising position, the one she hated and loved with equal parts of madness.

That one.

When the person you love makes you feel unlovable and insecure, what do you do? Think hard about them. When they make you cry yourself to sleep at night, what do you do? Think hard about them. When they make you sad – just plain sad – what do you do? Kill them.

And that’s exactly what Thuli planned to do – kill her husband. Plain and simple. She’d been thinking hard, very hard about it. It would be the perfect crime; no one would know she did it. They’d been circling the drain for months now and she was sick of it.

Terrence would be joining her soon so she had to be prepared. She surveyed her surroundings making sure there were no witnesses to the crime that was about to unfold on these beautiful, innocent school grounds.

Satisfied that it was safe she reached into a plastic folder in her work file and secretly pulled out a printed A4 photograph of Terrence taken at BestBank’s annual Golf Challenge. It was held two months ago over a long weekend at Sun City and Thuli didn’t attend. Why? Well, he hadn’t invited her... this time around.

His full, muscular frame made him look handsome in anything he threw on, including the lime green golf shirt, khaki pants, black Slazenger cap and golf shoes he wore in the photo. Looking back at Thuli were his smiling eyes, only she – his faithful wife – was not the reason for the smile. It was the person behind the camera: his personal assistant, Belinda.

Every now and then over the past few weeks when Thuli felt the need, she pulled out the same photo and snipped out a part of Terrence that was injurious to her. It was in tatters now, like a battered dangling scarecrow that no longer scared any crows. His ears were gone – they never listened to her, his hands were gone – they no longer held her, his feet were gone – they always walked away from her. Now those eyes had to go – they stopped seeing her; and that mouth too – it spewed poison even when shut.

Another quick look around confirmed all was clear so out came her weapon of choice: a medium-size pair of scissors she used for a crime whose charge would be ‘assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm by way of cutting and binning’. Instead of the therapeutic angry snipping she had done to the other parts however, this time she held the murder weapon in both hands and stabbed her husband’s eyes and lips repeatedly, scarring the wooden top of the table-bench combo she sat on. For maximum relief she mouthed angry words as she punctured the remaining life out of her husband.

That ugly, loud, oversized bird called the Hadeeda startled her with its guttural squawk as it landed like an old parachute a few meters away from her. She glared at it wondering why it couldn’t just chirp like other civilized suburban birds. And when it turned on its anal tap the crap that splattered on the grass made her screw her face in disgust, reminding her how they often splashed their excrement on the tiles around her pool. Shameless. It finally lifted off with another loud squawk leaving her to continue with the next item on her murderous agenda.

She carried on about Terrence and Belinda probably training together at the gym in their office park ...that dungeon of iniquity... stab, stab ...where you ogle at each other’s sculptured bodies... stab, stab, stab... And there was more...

After the school bell rang Kitso Lebone ran to her mother’s car with her classmate Leigh McDowell in tow. It was locked with no one inside so she looked around to see where her mother could be when a disturbing sight came into view in the distance. Her heart stopped.

Stab, stab, stab....

Is that your mom? Leigh asked when she saw what Kitso was looking at from their fifteen-meter distance.

Stab...

A lone woman seemed to be hitting madly at a wooden table with a single fist formed by two hands. Her lips were in on it too, moving angrily as she bashed the offending object. Her neatly parted hair extensions joined the fray encroaching on her beautiful face like hastily drawn curtains being tugged and pulled on a rusty rail.

Stab, stab, stab...

It must be one of those big spiders again. My mom hates them, Kitso offered weakly after she had recovered partially from the embarrassing sight. How else was she to explain her elegantly dressed mother banging the school’s table and talking to herself like a woman possessed?

This was downright scary. Thuli was so absorbed in the act that not even the sound of chattering children in the parking lot stopped her.

So she hates them so much she pounds them with her fist while talking to them? Leigh asked dubiously. Kitso was mortified.

Stab, stab....

I know it’s strange. Stay here, I’ll go and check how big it is. Without another word she dashed towards her mother, willing her to stop as she approached her.

Stab, stab, stab, stab...

If anyone else saw this she would suffer endless cruel jokes, especially from her taunters in grade five who mocked her with a cruel twist of her name, from Kitso to Tsoki. Now she winced at the thought of the nasty name.

Mom, she started calling out to her from a safe distance hoping she would stop before getting any closer.

Stab, stab...

Mo-o-om. No reply.

The hairpins that had neatly parted her weave eventually gave way to the furious stabbing motion and fell onto the table. Now her face was totally covered with hair. She looked like an upper-class version of a Sangoma invoking god-like powers before her troubled clients with a shriek of incantations at worn-out bones that wouldn’t reveal the sender of a lightning bolt that struck their tokoloshe.

Mo-o-o-o-om, Kitso tried louder this time.

That will teach you... stab, stab ...NEVER... stab, stab, stab, stab... She was going to say: to speak to me like that again,and then three more stabs when Kitso shouted desperately: Mom, what are you doing? She approached cautiously, closing the now three-meter gap.

Thuli froze and shook some of her hair out of her face. Her bulged eyes moved rapidly as if trying to keep up with a hypnotist’s fast-moving coin. Left, right, left, right.

Oh hi, honey. She panted through her greeting. She freed one hand from the scissor and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. Kitso’s sudden arrival shocked her, plus she was out of breath from her intense work of ‘healing’.

As her daughter – a witness to the murder – came closer, Thuli’s big brown eyes stayed on her calculatingly. Sweat dotted her upper lip, a panicked curve forming gradually on her mouth though not quite making it into a smile.

The skilled undertaker in her covertly slid the now headless and disemboweled corpse and murder weapon into the coffin – her large ‘multipurpose’ Gucci bag – and said as calmly as possible: I didn’t see you there, baby. Ready to go? But Kitso didn’t answer. She stood wide-eyed near the bench opposite her mother and pointed at the angry wounds on the wooden table.

Thuli ignored her and stood up quickly, picking up the scattered hairpins from the crime scene and securing them to her extensions. Then she pulled at her suit to reclaim a respectable look and took Kitso’s hand in one of her bloodstained ones. Mother and daughter now walked calmly to the car.

Leigh looked at them curiously as they passed by and yelled: So how big was it?

The size of your head, Kitso retorted and jumped into her mother’s VW four-by-four. She shut the heavy front passenger door still shaken by what she had seen. Then she suddenly wondered how safe she was in a moving vehicle with this mad woman behind the wheel, posing as her mother.

As they drove home Thuli asked about school and what they did, feigning interest just so Kitso wouldn’t grill her about what she had seen earlier. Kitso said school was fine but was in no mood for a chat. Her mother picked her up from school around 1:30pm every day and looked forward to her reports about what was said and done. But just not today, and the feeling was mutual.

****

Kitso enjoyed school even though her marks were slightly above average. For her, learning was about thinking independently rather than repeating what the teacher said or what was printed in a book. Don’t worry, high marks could just mean you’re a good parrot, she had said to one